Books Received

General

Airpower: Myths and Facts. By Col. Phillip S. Meilinger, USAF, Ret. Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 2003. ISBN 1-58566-124-4. Illustrations. Tables. Figures. Notes. Index. Pp. xv, 132. Paper. In this small chapbook, the author seeks to debunk 14 persistent myths about airpower, ranging chronologically from contentions that the Army Air Corps was greedy in the interwar years to today's suggestions that modern airpower deliberately targets civilians.

An Anatomy of Terror: A History of Terrorism. By Andrew Sinclair. London: Pan Books, 2004. ISBN 0-330-49260-8. Illustrations. Notes. Index. Pp. xvi, 399. £8.99. A reprint of the 2003 work which outlines the history of terrorist movements and methods from "Homer to al-Qaida" and argues that the nature of terrorism has been constant.

Bibliophiling Tejano Scholarship: Secondary Sources on Hispanic Texans. By Bruce A. Galsrud and Arnoldo de León. Alpine, Texas: Sul Ross State University, 2003. ISBN 0-9707709-1-X. Illustrations. Author index. Pp. xiv, 471. Paper. $25.00. The historical section, beginning with the year 1716, of this extensive bibliography is of some use to military historians; the larger, topical section less so.

Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force. By Peter D. Feaver and Christopher Gelpi. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-691-11584-2. Tables. Figures. Notes. References. Indexes. Pp. xiii, 236. $37.50. The "civilian-military opinion gap" does indeed exist and it affects policy decisions. Political leaders who are military veterans are less likely to use force; but when they do, they use it vigorously.

Combat Handguns. By Leroy Thompson. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2004. ISBN 1-85367-576-8. Photographs. Pp. 141. $24.95. This Greenhill Military Manual catalogues the wide array of internationally produced military hardware available today.

Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650-2000. By Charles Tilly. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-521-83008-7. Figures. References. Index. Pp. xiv, 305. $60.00. This theoretical study uses a comparison of political developments in Britain and France from 1650 onward to establish some patterns, albeit with a wide degree of divergence, of how democracy in Europe emerges from political struggle.

Ethnic Conflict in World Politics. By Barbara Harff and Ted Robert Gurr. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8133-9840-1. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Figures. Glossary. Appendix. Notes. Sources. Index. Pp. xiv, 237. Paper. $26.00. In this second edition of their text, two professors offer an analytical model and four case studies to examine ethnic conflict and the process by which it is channeled into the political arena.

Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations. Edited by Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-521-83279-9. Notes. Index. Pp. xii, 366. $60.00. The second edition of this student reader offers 20 introductory essays on various aspects of American foreign relations, including one on national security.

The Greenhill Dictionary of Military Quotations. Edited by Peter G. Tsouras. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2000. ISBN 1-85367-586-5. Bibliography. Indexes. Pp. 574. $24.95. A veritable Bartlett's of thousands of quotations from myriad sources on all aspects of military matters very broadly defined, arranged chronologically from ancient times to the present within an alphabetical listing of 485 categories, from "appeasement" to "coup d'oeil" to "pacification" to "victory."

If By Chance: Military Turning Points that Changed History. By Major General John Strawson. London: Pan Books, 2004. ISBN 0-330-49245-4. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 260. Paper. £7.99. In this reprint of last year's book, the British military historian offers a series of "what if" scenarios from Cape St. Vincent in 1797 to the fall of Berlin in 1945 in order to make his argument that the character of military leaders determines events, not vice-versa.

The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military...